Then there’s this thread in Comments on Staff Reports: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=62962
That may be so, but the problem is that if we don’t generally agree on its syntax, then we can’t understand one another.
I understand and sympathize with what I think is your basic point: that “correctness” can be taken to extremes in grammar as much as it can in other areas; but language is one place where we really do need a consensus.
The long and short of it is, when I hear someone use a non-word like “ongoing” or a phrase like “different than,” I am distracted from whatever point he is trying to make. That doesn’t help the speaker at all.
Agree I that to the extremes grammar taken irritating Communication {hymn sheet’s reading the same page off} facilitated Dead you are? Hyperbole
Well, dantheman, my powers do not extend as far as Czarcasm and TVeblen’s forum. But I’ll tell you what you can do. You go over there and post in the IMHO thread “all the intelligent people are discussing it over in CCC”. Do you accept this dangerous mission?
Shall I tell them “All your base are belong to us intelligent people over at CCC”?
Nah, too dangerous. I’m out of my league. 
Besides, I’ve said my piece here. If the OP wants to talk about it more, I’d be way overjoyed to do so.
“Ongoing” isn’t a word? Huh. It’s in Websters, and they claim it goes back to 1877.
There has been some objection to “ongoing,” particularly in England and as recently as the 1990s, on the grounds that it’s jargon or cliche. To say that it isn’t a word when it’s been widely used for fifty years (I don’t mean just by the vulgar folk, but by decent writers as well) seems extreme.
New words frequently sound infelicitious for a long time to those who remember a time before they were commonly used. Words that just plain ring wrong now include “concept” used as a verb and “incent” (back-formation from “incentive”). But if that’s the problem here, JoeFriday has one long memory.
Right, I know it’s in Webster’s, but I don’t have to like it, and I wish it wasn’t there. The big problem I have with “ongoing” is that it implies the existence of the verb “to ongo.” If so, where are onwent, ongone, etc.? Who says “will ongo”? And what’s wrong with “continuing”?
Anyhow, it just sounds to me like more businessese, along with impacted, downsizing, gifting, and growing your sales.
And we certainly have to apologize to ModernRonin2 for discussing grammar in his thread that asks people to stop discussing grammar. 
It doesn’t imply the existence of the verb “to ongo.” It’s an adjective, not a verb.
No, it’s not an adjective, although it is an adjectival form.
But this is silly. Upcoming. Incoming. Outgoing. It’s a standard construction of Germanic languages. English doesn’t do it as often as Hochdeutsch does, but it’s perfectly normal.
From my print copy of Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Edition:
ongoing: adj(1877) 1 a: being actually in process b: CONTINUING 2: continuously moving forward: GROWING
It is normal, yes. And an adjective, too!
From the Cambridge International Dictionary of English:
[quote]
ongoing adjective [not gradable]
continuing to exist or develop, or happening at the present moment /quote]
Boy, did THAT look crappy! Sorry about that. Hope you understood what I was tying to say…
Well, I think it’s a perfectly cromulent word, and my usage of it is ongoing. Must be my Teutonic heritage. Sorry, Joe.
No kidding. You beat me to it, Joe; I was going to say that, too.
On the other hand, since this thread now seems to have been thoroughly hijacked, does anyone else find anything odd about the thread title? Doesn’t “bored” normally take “by” or “with” as opposed to “of?” The expression “bored to death,” by the way, was condemned as hackneyed as far back as the 1950s.
I think discussions about language, grammar, and usage embiggen the smallest man.
Ah!!! The pain, the pain!! My whiney, self-serving rant
about how annoying I find grammar questions has
mutated into yet another grammar thread!
The pain! The agony! The overwhelming bleakness!
The vaguely existential angst! The profusion of plastic salad forks!! Make it stop, mommy!! ;]
Nah, actually I don’t mind. See, I gave this thread up
for dead several days ago, so it hasn’t been bugging me.
Carry on, ye merry grammarians! Better that you get
it out here than sending more questions to Uncle Cece. ;]
-Ben
For the record, not only did it never occur to me that Cecil might reply to me about “different than,” I did not actually ask a question. Cecil started it by bringing “composition” into his column and punting one of the things he said about it. So it’s up to Cecil to avoid provoking people to posting stuff about grammar.
nemo
[now extracting tongue from cheek]